174 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



but I cannot recollect a spring without its cold east winds. In 

 fact, the only weather that can be predicted with any degree of 

 certainty in this country, proverbial for the uncertainty of its 

 climate, is the cold blighting east wind that visits us so regularly 

 in the months of March, April, and May. And although 

 fortunately it is only now and again that it reaches a point so 

 injurious as it did last spring, yet every season its baneful influence 

 on vegetation is felt more or less. 



The practical deduction, if any, to be derived from this induc- 

 tive rigmarole of facts is that, in such places as the neighbourhood 

 of Glasgow, where trees are planted for ornament and shelter 

 only, their economic value being a quantity so infinitesimally small, 

 as never, I believe, to enter into the calculation of any one, the 

 trees most likely to give some measure of satisfaction, are, in my 

 opinion, the various species and varieties of elms, willows, 

 and poplars. The common-place character of some of those 

 trees may be objected to, but I think it will be pretty generally 

 admitted, from an aesthetic point of view, that the commonest 

 tree or shrub, if growing in a healthy condition, is a more pleasing 

 and attractive object than the rarest exotic struggling for a bare 

 existence in a miserable, shrivelled, half-dead condition. 



SPECIAL MEETING. 

 NATURAL HISTORY CLASS ROOM, GLASGOW UNIVERSITY. 



November 14th, 1871. 

 Professor John Young, M.D., F.G.S., President, in the chair. 



SPECIMENS EXHIBITED. 



The President and Mr John Young, F.G.S., had placed in the 

 room a very large number of specimens of fossil and recent oxen 

 and antelopes; also, of a series of deer, including the Mcgaccros, 

 or Irish Elk. Dr Young gave a brief sketch of the history* of the 

 domestic races of oxen, the specimens in the room illustrating the 

 character from which their relationship had been inferred. He 

 then pointed out the variations presented by the horns of cervine 

 animals, such as Fallow, Red, and Roe-deer. An interesting con- 



